In the world of digital marketing, a landing page is a page designed specifically for a marketing campaign. A potential client “lands” on the page from another source and is generally directed to take some sort of action.

Generally speaking, a landing page is not designed to net you organic traffic, the traffic generated to the page comes from paid advertising, or a campaign of some kind — whether it be social or email. Once you manage to get people to the landing page, it’s incredibly important to get them to convert. Read on for some tips to keep in mind when creating your landing pages.

• • • Headlines. Don’t lead a horse to water and hide the water. You want to make sure that your headline on the page matches whatever you used to draw people to the page. Otherwise people can feel like they were mislead and bounce off the page – before they convert.
    • CTA’s (or calls-to-action) are generally an image or bit of text that drives a user to perform a specific act, usually along the lines of “click here”, “download now” or “sign up now”. You may have a CTA in a button; “Click ME NOW”, or it may be a line of text on social media, “Follow the link to get the ebook now”. You want your cta to be direct, and clearly inform the viewer of the action you attend to take.
    • Offer. You’ve gotten people to your landing page with the promise of something, a free audit, a checklist or ebook, so you’ll want to make sure that the offer lines up with the means you used to get folks there, just like you did for their headlines.
      • • You want to make your offer educational and sell the value of what you are offering so that people willingly give up their information for it. People guard their email address fiercely, so make it worthwhile to them.
        • We know that the attention span of the modern human is 8 seconds or less. You need to make sure the copy on your page is short and sweet. If you can use a video, do it! Video on landing pages improves conversions by 86%. Make sure you keep the video short though so not to drive people away. If you can’t use a video make sure that you’ve included a picture of the item up for offer and quickly summarize what the viewer can learn from it or solve with it. Make a point to direct them to the form.
    • Turn the menu off on your landing page! You drove your audience to the site. Don’t let them get distracted and click off your landing page by keeping the menu on. Make sure your copy catches the eye and don’t let them get away without doing what you sent them there to do. . . fill out your form.
    • Above the fold. You may have heard people talk about keeping things above the fold. It use to mean putting your important information above the fold of a newspaper – but who reads those anymore? Nowadays, above the fold means placing your important information on the screen before a user has to scroll down. There are some things you MUST keep above the fold. Your form. Your CTA. Your copy. Users bounce if they get to a landing page and have to scroll. Don’t let them.
    • Forms, forms, forms. Destiny’s Child may have sang about bills, but marketers sing about their forms. You want to keep your form above the fold. You also want people to fill out your form so you need to keep it short. Capture the bare minimum of information needed; company, name, email, phone number. If you make your form too long you’ll notice it’s not converting, because people don’t want to fill it out. People bounce without making the conversion because you ask for more information from them than they are willing to give. Don’t make it complicated.
    • Say Thank You! The last thing you’ll want on your landing page is the thank you page or success page as it’s also know. You want people to have confirmation that you’ve received their form submission and will be reaching out to them. If you have a download this is where they will receive it. You will also want to make sure that you add a personal touch. “Thank you for your interest in our ebook. A team member will be in touch shortly. In the meantime check out our blog and follow us on…”. Don’t leave people hanging.

Things to remember when you set up your landing page: people value educational information and people like free stuff. Make sure your landing page succinctly gets your message across and always be innovating. If you find that your landing page isn’t converting, start testing out variations, don’t leave the page static and hope for the best. Keep working on it until it converts.As always, reach out to DMTG if you have any questions about setting up landing pages, or need help getting yours to convert.

When it comes to selling website design and development, it isn’t so much about selling a businesses owner something that can seem intangible, rather, it’s most important to sell the VALUE of a website.

Think about yourself, when you make a purchase — you strongly consider the value as a large part of your buying decision(s).

Often, for smaller, locally-based businesses, cash flow can be tight. The challenge, however is selling the long-term value that the website will return — so it is not about the cost, rather it’s about the INVESTMENT.

What Value Can a Website Bring to a Local Business?

• A business is available on a 24/7 basis
• Business owners have the chance to shape their image exactly how they want
• Customer behavior online is tracked and analyzed for better service & products
• Advertising/Exposure online is how the majority of potential customers find businesses
• A website in a particular niche can be defensive against competitors who are already online
• Show How Communication with Customers Will Improve
• Describe How Customer Service Can Improve
• Explain How Some People Like to Use the Phone Where Others Prefer Email
• Show How A Well-Designed Website Can Create Instant Credibility & Authority
• Remind Business Owners That First Impressions Count
• Demonstrate How NOT Having a Website Can Mean Lost Business
• Through Research, Show Business Owners How They Can Reach a Larger Audience

Top-Level Strategies for Effective Proposal Persuasion

Most people react to the problem/solution model. You present their problems (pain points) and you also present that you are the viable solution.

• Research & Compose a Meaningful Problem Statement
• Present a Rock-Solid Solution
• Use Proof (your experience and examples) of Skills
• Provide Fair Pricing Models
• Match The Complexity of the Proposal to That of The Problem/Project (don’t confuse people)
• Be Fair & Honest to Budget Expectations
• Be Clear About Deliverables
• Be Clear & Honest About Launch Dates
• Prove You’ll Match The Design To Their Brand and Needs
• Outline All Costs On Your End
• List and Describe All Integrations Needed
• Outline Your Process, Capabilities, Fee Structure, Team Bios

There are nuances that go into each of the above bullet points, that which we cover in our monthly in-person trainings; but over all, this is a good starting point for anyone who wishes to get better at making sales for websites from the $5k to the $10k and $20k ranges. Be sure to check out more of our blog posts, we love to share our insights and hope to be able to help more agency owners, salespeople, and freelancers.

• Keeping visited links the same color. This is especially important if your site has many pages. Your site visitors may easily get confused and flustered if they are expected to remember every single page of your site they’ve already been on, especially if they are looking for something specific. Don’t lose site visitors because of this easy to remedy mistake.

• Fluffy text. Sure, there’s a lot you want to say to your site visitors, but you must break it down into tiny, bite-sized pieces or you will lose their attention. Keep your text simple and to the point, and organize it into small paragraphs (no more than 3 or 4 sentences), with bold paragraph headers that clearly outline the page’s content.

• Design elements that are ad-like in appearance. Studies show that site visitors have the ability to virtually blind themselves (or, mentally ignore) web content that looks to be an advertisement. Therefore, if there is anything important on your page that even slightly resembles an ad (pop-ups, banners, and animated graphics, for example), you should reconsider the design.

We are the Digital Marketing Training Group. With over 75 years of combined digital marketing experience, we have been providing a recipe for success to people who want to run their own businesses in a multi-billion dollar industry that is growing year after year.

• Design aesthetics. It goes without saying that your site should be pleasing to the eye. A number of different elements contribute to a design’s aesthetic value, including typography, graphics, colors, and layout.

We are the Digital Marketing Training Group. With over 75 years of combined digital marketing experience, we have been providing a recipe for success to people who want to run their own businesses in a multi-billion dollar industry that is growing year after year.

• Hierarchy. A good website design will naturally guide the viewer’s eyes from what is most important to what is least important on the page, and in the right order. This is accomplished through the strategic use of fonts (including sizes, effects, and emphasis), spacing, graphics, and element placement.

We are the Digital Marketing Training Group. With over 75 years of combined digital marketing experience, we have been providing a recipe for success to people who want to run their own businesses in a multi-billion dollar industry that is growing year after year.

• Navigation. This is perhaps the most important element of web design. Your site’s navigation features are what will enable your visitors to travel from one page to the next, find specific items of interest, and form associations within your content. Without well-planned and executed navigation, you will lose site visitors and a lot of your valuable content could go completely un-found and unread. Navigation elements include primary/secondary navigation, menus, search bars, inbound links, and breadcrumbs, among other things.

We are the Digital Marketing Training Group. With over 75 years of combined digital marketing experience, we have been providing a recipe for success to people who want to run their own businesses in a multi-billion dollar industry that is growing year after year.

Many people are tempted to use a bargain-basement designer, but the saying is true “If it’s cheap, you’ll probably pay twice.” So when it comes to hiring a web designer, there are a number of benefits to hiring a great web designer who makes stellar website designs.

→ Expert Branding. You already know how important branding is. Hopefully! Effective website design will exude your business’ brand and help bring it to life online. Poor design work will be negative for your brand, as it will be too generic and unfortunately forgettable. This will cost you customers and help propel your competitors to new heights.

→ Professional Image. Not hiring a professional designer to design your new website will make your branding elements looking sloppy and untrustworthy. Think about it: Is that the message you want to send to new and existing customers?

→ Forward-thinking Adaptability. Great web design takes into account the inevitable – the need to adapt over time. You’ll want it to be easy to make regular edits, updates, and additions — for both your visitors and the search engines. Keeping your site functional and your content relevant is important for the shelf-life of your brand online — and for your bottom line.

We are the Digital Marketing Training Group. With over 75 years of combined digital marketing experience, we have been providing a recipe for success to people who want to run their own businesses in a multi-billion dollar industry that is growing year after year.

We are the Digital Marketing Training Group. With over 75 years of combined digital marketing experience, we have been providing a recipe for success to people who want to run their own businesses in a multi-billion dollar industry that is growing year after year.

A positive, working experience on your website will lead to happy visitors. Promoting ease-of-use, brand retention, positive brand awareness, brand spread, and appeal will ensure repeat visits.

Your design will dictate the overall experience. Your design will dictate the ways in which people navigate your site.

A General Definition of web design:

The actual layout and the presentation of content as it will appear on the web.

Sending Strong Signals Magnifies Value

Look beyond your logo in regards to your brand. Your brand is not just your logo. User experience on the site is all part of building positive brand awareness and experience. Your website design should illustrate that via aesthetics. The design dictates ease-of-use, simplicity and value.

Don’t design around what you value in regards to your product (or message). Your design should convey the values of your audience so that they feel that their time is well-spent.

You have goals for your website; the entire website should be designed around facilitating the paths to reach your goals, while satisfying the needs and desires of your target audience.

First impressions count, be sure that the site layout and content is directly appealing to your specific audience.

More Strong Signals to be Aware Of And To Consider:

• Balance is important. This includes balancing text with graphics or implementing other digital as- sets with each other and/or text in a logical yet appealing manner. Too heavy a hand on one or the other, and the visitor experience is diminished; subsequently your site traffic can suffer.

• The careful use of ‘balance’ can make even small amounts of content incredibly impactful.

• In line with balance, think quality, not quantity. This can apply to the use of images, text, and/or video whether stock or not.

• Your logo should expertly define what your company does, convey who you are, and what your service or niche is. It should be prominent, memorable, but it shouldn’t take away from the message delivery that leads to your goals.

• A clean, and clear interface will both appease, and help the visitor. Unintuitive and multiple-step processes to find a means to an end will frustrate the user.
• Any consumable text should be readable (think font size), nobody wants to use a magnifying glass.

• Your most important calls-to-action or most frequently used interactive (and when I say ‘interactive’ this can mean links to important pages) items should reside above the fold.

We are the Digital Marketing Training Group. With over 75 years of combined digital marketing experience, we have been providing a recipe for success to people who want to run their own businesses in a multi-billion dollar industry that is growing year after year.

We are the Digital Marketing Training Group. With over 75 years of combined digital marketing experience, we have been providing a recipe for success to people who want to run their own businesses in a multi-billion dollar industry that is growing year after year.